WVU in the News: Appalachia has 'most alarming' HIV outbreak in nation. The proposed solutions are controversial
Decades after HIV was first discovered, there’s still discrimination. In this week’s episode of Inside Appalachia, we hear from several people here in Appalachia who are living with HIV.
We also look back at why a needle exchange program in Charleston, West Virginia, was shut down in 2018 amid public outcry. Three years later, the city is now at the center of the most alarming outbreak of HIV in the nation.
Dr. Gordon Smith, a professor at West Virginia University School of Public Health, said prevention is the best method for avoiding HIV outbreaks. In 2017, Smith’s team was awarded a $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Appalachian Regional Commission to prevent HIV and hepatitis C outbreaks related to the opioid epidemic.